David Cameron’s judgment day

This will be Cameron’s finest hour — or the scene of a lynching

Fraser Nelson

29 September 2007

This will be a make-or-break conference for the Tory leader

There is widespread fear that Mr Brown will have an unpleasant surprise waiting for the Tories on Sunday. ‘He’s bound to have some defectors lined up,’ says one shadow Cabinet member, ‘Even if they’re a group of councillors from Auchtermuchty. But you can guarantee he’ll have held something back for us.’

However, I understand that there will be no such announcements. The Prime Minister has indeed been talking to other Tories interested in ‘advising’ him in the same way as John Bercow and Patrick Mercer have naively agreed to do. But — crucially — talk of an early election has stalled these discussions. The Tories in question told the Prime Minister’s staff that to carry on such talks during a period of election fever was politically impossible.

Labour will instead spend this weekend running opinion polls in marginal constituencies. There is much paranoia in No. 10 about the work of Lord Ashcroft, the Tory’s billionaire deputy chairman, who has an office inside Conservative head office and is considered by many to be the de facto party chairman (Caroline Spelman, who holds the position, is widely regarded as a frontwoman). The strategy is simple: his lordship personally donates up to £30,000 to help a candidate fight a particular marginal, knowing that in aggregate these seats will decide the election. Mr Brown cannot consider himself fully informed about his election chances until he polls in these constituencies. It is an expensive exercise, which he would not be undertaking if he wasn’t actively considering an election next month.

The Tories are by no means fully prepared for an early election, having yet to select candidates for about a third of the 650 constituencies. But an emergency manifesto has been produced by Oliver Letwin. Lord Ashcroft’s Target Seat campaign has already ensured the marginals have both candidates and money. Labour, too, has not found candidates for its more hopeless seats: neither Mr Cameron in Witney nor Mr Osborne in Tatton has a Labour opponent.

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James B

September 27th, 2007 2:48pm Report this comment

It is quite correct that the marginal seats are where it is all happening, and not the Winter Gardens. Relentless targeted leaflets and letters, paid for by Lord Ashcroft can do far more to make up a swing voter's mind than the grumbling of a few discontended party members in Blackpool. Most voters simply do not pay attention to party conferences. It's only the political geeks - and in this category I include myself and just about everyone who contributes to this blog - who get excited about 4 days at the seaside in autumn. I assume that the Conservatives are conducting their own polls in the target seats just as Labour is. I would very much like to know what these polls are saying. That way we can know whether David Cameron's recent challenge to Gordon Brown to call an election now is based on hard evidence that, where the votes matter, his appeal is succeeding. Or whether it was pure bluff. So far as Blackpool is concerned, I simply can't see it being anything like a re-run of 2003, when IDS made a desperate and ultimately futile pitch for his own job against a backdrop of staged applause from CCO stooges.

Barbara Bishop

September 28th, 2007 9:36am Report this comment

Gordon Brown is waving Cameron off as if he were nought but a pesky midge on a Highland ramble. It is indeed deeply tragic that the Tories laboured and brought forth a Tony Blair clone just at the time when charisma was going out of fashion and sober substance was taking its place. Michael Howard never should have resigned after winning those seats at the last elections (it was always an odd decision for a winner to make?). But he didn't have the vision or apparently the will to "reframe" the Tories which is what was needed to capitalise the gains. So there you go.